17 Weeks Pregnant (And Some Home School?)

Honestly, I don’t even feel like writing a pregnancy post this week.
I’ve continued to be nauseous and tired, just like before.
So part of me doesn’t feel like talking about it. And part of me is just like, “You don’t want to hear about it.” And another part of me is almost used to it. Feeling gross is now my normal. So some days I get really down about that, because I so did not expect this long, of this much, gross-ness. But some days I’m able to just shrug it off, because “What’s new.”

I’m queasy pretty much all the time, and really bad at night.
And car rides make everything worse.

But I’d like to just throw in there, I am getting somewhat better at washing my hair again. (You don’t even want to know during those first few months.) So I figure I have to be doing a little better at least. And when I don’t wash my hair, I am getting better and better at “fake it till you make it.” I’m so set for new-baby-in-the-house-hair. I’m a pro at hiding filth at this point! (At least I think I am. Maybe I should take a poll from those who’ve seen me lately…)

I had at least two days this week where I was zero fun awful to be around. Sorry Mom and Blake. My hormones were insurmountable and I was super discouraged and unable to get over it. I’ve read somewhere that pregnancy is a lot like puberty/Jr. High because of how much everything is changing/raging hormones… I’d have to agree. I had a very clear moment where I could have sworn I was not a pregnant mom, but instead a 13 years old, hating life, and arguing about how bad an outfit looked on me with my mom. (“No I look horrible in this!” Cue the need to run away scream-crying, but try to resist by huffing and stomping away before tears show up.)
And in that moment I actually felt really bad for my Jr. High self -- so oblivious to hormones' strength! At least right now I know what’s going on. And I felt bad for my mom who has apparently mom-ed me through four Jr. High periods in my life. You need a medal, mom. I hope I’m growing slightly more tactful with each attempt at this -- but maybe not.

I did have a couple high points this week.

One: Some awesome (secret) person sent me a care package in the mail. If you are reading this, thank you very, very much. That was so nice of you! It was amazing. And the sea bands actually do help quite a bit. They don’t take away the nausea, but they do take a big edge off of it. Which is great! And they feel so much better than the Psi Bands, which actually really hurt to wear. So I’m pleased I can actually keep the Sea Bands on most the day. But I loved all the stuff you sent me. Thank you so much!

And Two: I had a really lovely day out with a friend on Saturday. And that very much helped clear my brain of all of it’s strain -- both pregnancy related and decorating related. I came home in a much better mood. And that night all my decorator’s block was suddenly gone and I all of a sudden knew exactly the right answers to all my “What do I do with this space!?” questions. Both sensations: not being super crabby, and knowing how to make my house work -- were amazing. So Thank you friend!



Baby:
I do feel baby move sometimes. But still not lots. I’m looking forward to lots.

AND,
I’m heavily leaning towards being surprised by the gender this time.

I know! I hear you gasping! I would to if I were you. This is NOT like me.
The last two pregnancies I couldn’t find out the gender fast enough. It was like “Why can’t this pregnancy test tell me!?!?!?! I NEED TO KNOW NOW!!”

And I thought that was just the way I was, that I just needed to find out.
But this time I’m feeling fairly sure I’d like to be surprised.
I reserve the right to change my mind.
But so far I keep feeling more and more sure I’d like to wait to know when I'm holding the baby in my arms.

It started as just a general sensation. And I’m pretty into trusting my gut for pregnancy stuff. I have a pretty deep belief that there is some intense maternal knowledge in our gut. So I didn’t try to change my mind on the idea, I just waited to see if the idea stayed or went. So far it’s staying and getting stronger.
I don’t think there’s a big reason for this. I just feel like it’s important to me for some reason -- it feels very peaceful to me, and I want to respect that, instead of over-riding it, even if doesn’t seem like something I’d do. (How many things have I now done in motherhood that I was never going to do?)

But like I said, I reserve the right to change my mind. If my gut changes, I’ll go with it.

 

Do you think I’ve caught up with myself yet?

This third pregnancy has been making me feel like a premature whale.

I seriously can’t believe how fast I got a bump and how big it got right off the bat!

I do feel like I waddle and have to hoist myself out of bed already…it’s crazy to me. And when I get up from sitting….man I feel like I’m 700 years old. I have to walk all my creaky kinks out of my bones in pain. This is SO not like last time --- I don’t remember like that anyway.

(I don’t think everyone’s third pregnancy is this rough -- I hope I’m not scaring anyone away from another baby! I think I just pulled a short straw this time around.)

In other family life news….

I went ahead and ordered some home school stuff.
(A while ago we decided we’d like to home school, based mainly on our food allergy issues. But I have since become more in love with the idea based on it’s other merits as well. And so far Jasmine is still very much in favor of it -- I like to check in with her, to make sure it’s what she wants, because I do know going to school is possible with food allergies. But she really likes the idea of home school.)

My plan had been leaning towards waiting. Jasmine is only 4. And I’ve been doing a lot of research and have really been enjoying the concept of “Charlotte Mason” style homeschool. Charlotte Mason (and those that use her methods) strongly feel that kids don’t need to start school until they are 6. (They are pro learning before that, just not formal school stuff so soon.) Which sounded great to me for lots of reasons. So I figured that’s what we would do. But suddenly Jasmine started seeming extremely interested in school. And my big moment came when she started asking, “Mom will you pretend to be the teacher and I’ll be the class” and she wanted me to teach her stuff. This has become a much requested game. So I figured it was time.

I’m not going to put pressure on the experience, because I really don’t think it’s something we need to be doing yet. But it seems like she will enjoy it. So after I ordered the stuff I’ve been telling her we will “play school” with it --  because if I ask her if she wants to “do school” she claims she’s not old enough. And I actually didn’t tell her she had to be any certain age to do school -- her saying that is just her getting nervous. She’s always been afraid to fail, and I really try to work on that with her -- trying to be ok with less than perfect, that just the effort is good. So I don’t want school to feel hard. That’s why we are calling it “play.” Because really for now that’s all I see it as anyway. She likes to learn, so it’s just good fun.

Our stuff will show up this week. But I’m not quite sure when I’ll start. I don’t want to start before I feel like I know the program well enough.
And I’m not sure how often we will do it. I’d like it to be routine. But I’m not sure we will do 5 days a week yet. I’m gonna see how Jasmine responds to it and go off of that. Plus I’m not really sure how Ruby is gonna respond to this stuff. She at times has to be JUST like Jasmine, but then at other times, she likes to be off doing her own thing. So I’m not sure if I’ll be including her in this or not yet.  And if I do, how that will work -- I’m nervous she will INSIST on having the same papers as Jasmine (but she’ll just scribble on them) so I don’t really want to have to photo copy everything or order the student book again just for that. I’m hoping she’s accept some other papers I offer her. Time will tell.

I looked at lots and lots of home school curriculum options over many, many months. There were a few that really got my attention and fought for my vote.  But ultimately I felt best about going with a program called My Father’s World.
I liked that it seemed to incorporate every kind of homeschool style I was attracted to, as well as components of other curriculums that felt good to me. It’s got a strong Charlotte Mason base to it. But it also incorporates classical learning, unit studies, and lots of hands on stuff. So I felt good going with that because so far I really don’t know for sure what Jasmine’s learning style is, and this feels like it will cover any style she might have. And so far she seems to like it all. We’ve been doing reading from Simply Charlotte Mason’s reading list -- and she loves that. (Even the chapter books.) She seems to enjoy worksheets we’ve done here and there. And hands on stuff is so her -- she loves crafts, coloring, painting, the works. So we will see when it comes down to it how we do with this curriculum.
 But I’m looking forward to it.
And I’ll just throw in this idea too: This program also looked appealing to me. There were a few different types of curriculum I came across that sounded like torture to me. I knew that trying to do something I couldn’t stand would be a disaster for all of us. So I had to pick something that sounded fun to me too. This looks fun in my book.

We went with the kindergarten program. It sounded good for where we are at. I’ve read that some moms feel it might not be hard enough for kindergarden (but then again other moms felt great about it for kindergarden, so take everything for where you’re kid is at) but that gave me the confidence to think we wouldn’t be doing something crazy starting it now at 4.

But if Jasmine isn’t really ready, I’m fine with putting it away for a while.

So I’ll have to update you in a while once it shows up and we get our feet wet.


And and because I like everything to be pretty, I’m very inspired by this homeschool space over at "The Handmade Home”. While I don’t see us really claiming a room as a super dedicated homeschool room, I’d like to make a couple pretty things for our walls by our kitchen table that we can use for homeschool, but also look like art -- kinda like the stuff she’s made in her space. I really like her dry erase board (the big striped thing on the shelves.)
So whenever I get back into gear and start back up on projects, I’d like to decorate our kitchen walls with some multifunctional things, as well as some just general art stuff too.
(Don’t get too excited for results….not sure when they will occur. But they live happily in my mind.)